Welcome to the Heart of Minneapolis!

Welcome to the Heart of Minneapolis!

On Tuesday, January 2, I had the
honor and privilege to be sworn into office as the City Council Member for
Minneapolis Ward 3! I look forward to faithfully serving everyone in this ward
and across the city for the next four years.

I have been assigned to the following Council committees: Ways & Means (Vice Chair), Budget (Vice Chair), Public Safety &
Emergency Management (Vice Chair), Economic Development & Regulatory
Services, Transportation & Public Works, and Enterprise.

As a member of these committees, I will be able to have a direct impact on affordable housing, public safety, transportation options, and supporting small businesses. I look forward to my work on those and other priorities as we move forward.

I was able to recruit two outstanding staff to join me in my office: Senior Policy Aide David Zaffrann can be reached at David.Zaffrann@MinneapolisMN.gov or 612-673-3142, and Policy Associate Laura Dorle can be reached at Laura.Dorle@MinneapolisMN.gov or 612-673-3126.

We will send periodic newsletters
like this one by email, and I also encourage you to Like our Facebook Page and follow me on Twitter to get
up-to-date information about issues, events, and more in Ward 3 and around
Minneapolis.

Super Bowl LII

In case you haven’t heard, the
Super Bowl will be held at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday, February 4! Whether
you’re a football fan or not, this is a huge event and a huge opportunity for
all of us to show off our City to the country and the world, and hopefully have
some fun, too.

Two
areas in Ward 3 downtown will have road closures: U.S. Bank Stadium for the game itself and Nicollet Avenue for Super
Bowl LIVE.

On
Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 4, SOME municipal parking facilities will require
total use for event purposes, i.e. no contract parking will be available. There will be no change for monthly contract parking in municipal
facilities until game day.

The
Commons park will also be affected. The East Block of The Commons will be closed to the public from
January 6 - February 9, 2018. The
West Block of The Commons will remain open and accessible for public use
from January 6 - February 9, 2018. There will be no public restrooms available at The Commons until Feb
12.

Regular
light-rail service WILL NOT operate on Sunday, February 4.Only those holding an official Super Bowl LII
ticket, along with a Gameday Fan Express Pass, will be allowed to go
through security checkpoints and board trains at either Mall of America
(Blue Line) or Stadium Village (Green Line) stations. Green Line service
will operate normally between Stadium Village and Union Depot stations.

For
anyone without a ticket, buses will replace light-rail trains on the
entirety of the Blue Line throughout the day on February 4, 2018. Free replacement buses will operate between Target Field Station and
Stadium Village Station on the Green Line. Buses run on similar schedules
to trains but can take longer; please plan accordingly

Billboards

Toward the end of the last city
council term, an ordinance began moving through the committee process that
would have loosened restrictions on billboards in downtown Minneapolis. Because
my office has received a high volume of constituent contact on this proposal, I
wanted to share an update on its status.

In short: it is dead. Any
ordinance that was not passed before the end of the four-year council term is
automatically ‘returned to author’ and would need to be reintroduced to become
active again in the new term. Council Member Warsame, the ordinance’s original
author, has expressed to me that he does not intend to reintroduce the
ordinance. I join the near-unanimous voice of my Ward 3 neighbors in opposing
the ordinance and will not reintroduce it.

I have appreciated the
constituent feedback on this ordinance, and appreciate Council Member Warsame’s
willingness to incorporate the feedback from Ward 3 constituents into his
thinking on the topic. In the process of researching this ordinance, many of us
learned that the current law already allows more new billboards than most of us
realized or would like to see since much of Ward 3 is in an ‘opportunity zone’
for billboards that was designated decades ago, before the rise in residential
land use in many of our neighborhoods. My office will explore whether this
zoning policy should be revisited to further restrict billboards in downtown
areas with residential land use.

14th Avenue NE

Since taking office and even
before, I have been working with residents and businesses in the Sheridan
neighborhood who will be impacted by the construction project at 14th Ave and
Marshall Ave throughout much of this year. Builders will install a crane in the
last week of January that will not leave room on 14th for two lanes of traffic
plus parking.

We’ve identified a temporary
change — making 14th Ave one-way eastbound between Marshall and Grand — that
will help make the corner of 14th and Marshall safer while visibility is
blocked by construction equipment and reduce the parking impact on local
businesses nearby, including The
Draft Horse and the Food
Building.

We've heard from those small
business owners that this temporary change will help their businesses thrive.
Before we moved forward with a decision, we worked to reach everyone else who
would be most impacted. My staff and I knocked on doors within a couple of
blocks of the construction site to get community input, and got almost entirely
positive feedback. We checked with the fire department and the Sheridan
Neighborhood Organization, who ended up writing a letter of support for the
change.

Our goal was to come up with a
solution that supports our small businesses, keeps drivers and pedestrians
safe, and inconveniences as few people as possible. There's no perfect answer,
but I'm confident that we found the best possible answer together for our
neighborhood. Thanks to everyone who shared their opinions!

Dinkytown shooting

Anytime a shooting occurs in any
neighborhood, it's a trauma – to the victims, to the witnesses, and to everyone
whose sense of peace and safety is disrupted with the sound of gunfire. On
January 6, that trauma came to Dinkytown. I want to express my profound
condolences to the family and friends of the victim who died, my wishes for
healing to the victim who was injured, and offer the support of my office to
anyone in the neighborhood with questions, concerns, or ideas about how to help
everyone in our community be and feel safe.

I spoke with Inspector Loining
from the 2nd Precinct the following morning to get an update and to express my
thanks to the investigators who are working in response to this tragedy on
behalf of the city. I can share that we have no reason to interpret this as
anything other than an isolated incident.

If you have information about
this incident that could be useful to investigators, call the tip line at:
(612) 692-TIPS (8477)

Lock & Dam Visitor’s Center and Stone Arch Bridge

On January 10, I had the
opportunity to welcome legislators from across the state to Ward 3 during a
State Senate bonding tour, to make the case for state investment in the Lock
& Dam as a destination visitor's center and public park space on the
Mississippi River in the heart of Minneapolis.

We also got to tour the City’s
Emergency Operations Training Facility and the Upper Harbor Terminal, where we
have a chance to make a huge, impactful investment in riverfront access on the
Northside. With both the Lock & Dam and the Upper Harbor Terminal, we want
to make the Mississippi River as open and accessible and beautiful and fun a
place to be for everyone that we possibly can.

I want to thank all of the state
legislators who joined us and the City’s Inter-Governmental Relations staff who
coordinated the whole tour. We didn’t see all of those priorities in the
Governor’s bonding proposal, but I’m hopeful the legislators who saw the
potential for a revitalized Mississippi River will focus some investment on our
cherished natural resource.

One thing that is included in
Governor Dayton’s proposal that you may have heard about is funding for needed
repairs to the Stone Arch Bridge. Obviously, ensuring the Stone Arch Bridge
remains safe and open to the public is a top priority for Ward 3 and the entire
city, and I’m working with my colleagues on the Inter-Governmental Relations
committee to provide additional city support for MN DOT’s request for funding
to maintain our iconic bridge.

City settles first case for worker denied sick time

The City of Minneapolis has
settled its first case of retaliation under the sick and safe time ordinance,
resulting in an $11,000 settlement for the employee.

A gas station that strongly
discouraged its employees from using sick leave – even though it allowed it on
paper – triggered a report of violation from an employee who had become ill and
unavailable to work. When he requested sick leave he was denied and then banned
from the premises and removed from the schedule. He effectively lost his job.

As a low-wage worker, he depends
on his current paycheck to pay rent. Following the employer’s actions in this
case, he was evicted from his apartment and now lives with family members. He
did not want to return to this employer.

In just over three months from
the date the employee filed the complaint, the Minneapolis Department of Civil
Rights reached a settlement agreement for $11,000 in lost wages for him and
will monitor compliance going forward with the gas station. Civil Rights staff
will also conduct in-person trainings there separately for employees and
management.

People who work in Minneapolis
whose employers don’t provide the sick and safe time required by the new law
can call 311 or visit www.minneapolismn.gov/sicktimeinfo
to ask a question or file a complaint with the Labor Standards Enforcement
Division of the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights.

For healthy workers, healthy
businesses and healthy communities, the new ordinance protecting time off for
people who get sick and work in Minneapolis took effect July 1. Employers with
six or more workers are required to provide time off at a minimum threshold of
at least one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Employers with
five or fewer workers must also provide sick time, but it may be unpaid. The goal
of the ordinance is to protect public health and prevent workers from being
penalized because of illness or a need to care for a sick loved one.

City’s minimum wage ordinance in effect

The City’s new municipal minimum
wage ordinance has taken effect. For this first phase of the ordinance, large
businesses with more than 100 employees will be required to pay workers at
least $10 an hour.

The tiered phase-in period for
small and large businesses is as follows.

Note: The minimum wage will be
indexed to inflation every subsequent January after the $15 an hour wage is
reached.

The City’s Department of Civil
Rights will oversee enforcement of the municipal minimum wage, and employees
are encouraged to report violations online.

The ordinance applies to all
employees regardless of immigration status. The City will not inquire about an
individual’s immigration status when investigating ordinance violations. The
City will not tolerate retaliation against workers who report violations or
otherwise assert their rights.

More than 84,000 people in
Minneapolis have incomes below the federal poverty level. An increase in the
minimum wage to $15 an hour would benefit 23 percent of workers in Minneapolis
– about 71,000 people. Of this number a majority are low-wage workers of color.

The City of Minneapolis youth
employment program STEP-UP has begun accepting applications for 2018 summer
internship placements. Eligible Minneapolis youths ages 14-21 who are
interested in participating in the 2018 STEP-UP class have until Feb. 16 to complete
an application online.

STEP-UP is one of the country’s
premier youth employment programs, serving Minneapolis youths who face some of
the greatest barriers to employment. Since the program was launched, it has
provided more than 27,000 internship opportunities.

Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan

The City of Minneapolis is in the
process of updating our Comprehensive Plan, which outlines our citywide
policies and priorities and will guide our work to grow equitably and
sustainably toward a unified vision for Minneapolis in 2040.

Visit
minneapolis2040.com
to explore, learn more, and respond to our plan for the future based on
what we’ve heard from you so far

Make
a map! Show us opportunities to expand housing choice, improve access to
retail, and expand connectivity

The conference will also feature
a Minneapolis neighborhood showcase and delicious food from American
Indian, African American and Southeast Asian caterers among others. Come join
nonprofits, elected leaders, community organizations and others to learn about
civic engagement opportunities, community partnerships, social justice
initiatives and ways to shape local government policies. Sign
up here.

The East of the River Park Master Plan will create cohesive
long-term plans for 36 Minneapolis park properties east of the Mississippi
River. The project launched last fall. Since then, Minneapolis Parks staff have hosted three
official Community Advisory Committee (CAC) meetings, visited more than 30 different
community events and worked with a Youth Design Team to begin developing the
plan.

Over the next month, work will be focused on taking
in-depth looks at parks within individual neighborhoods. Check out the list below, mark your calendar, show
up and make a difference in creating a long-term vision that will guide how
your favorite neighborhood parks evolve. Please also take a few minutes to provide input on all
the neighborhood parks in NE and SE Minneapolis through our online survey linked below.

Community Advisory Committee Meeting #4

The
fourth East of the River Park Master Plan Community Advisory Committee
(CAC) meeting has been scheduled. All CAC meetings are open to the
public! Visit the project page to view recaps of the three previous CAC meetings.

Date:Monday, February 12, 2018, 6-8 pm

Location:Water Bar, 2518 Central Ave. NE

Online
Survey

There’s an online survey available for people who may not
have the time to attend one of these design sessions. Please take a few minutes
to reflect on and share your experiences in NE/SE Minneapolis
parks. Survey responses will be accepted until Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. East of the
River Park Master Plan Survey.

If you need a reasonable
accommodation to fully participate or if you need information in an alternative
format, please contact 311 (612-673-3000). TTY users call 612-673-2157.